|
Smell of the Crowd by Maddy Bell
Copyright© 2022 Madeline Bell
|
Centralstation
It took me a few minutes to get going again, I’d planned on maybe fifteen or twenty minutes but my visit to Fahrrad Mertens had been more than double that. Well what’s done is done, you can’t turn the clock back, well not until October! Anyhoo, Arni was right, the Four Two Six is quite busy, I was glad to take the first of Jakob’s corner cuts at Mömlingen, I don’t think it saved much distance and I was lucky to make both left hand turns unhindered but it gave me a couple of minutes without having to worry about juggernauts.
Not only that but I got to use a country lane running parallel to the main road for a bit too. The countryside could easily have been up in the NRW or even the Eifel, the road following the river as it twists through the wooded hills, arable farming covering the valley floor. It wasn’t far past the next village that I got off the busy road again, instead, thanks to Jakob, I made the turn onto the old road which gave me a much more traffic ride for the next five K, right into Höchst.
The new road was actually the Forty Five, which as my guides had suggested was much quieter as it wound north, hey, the sun was on my back, a girl knows these things. It wasn’t that far before I turned left again though to continue more westerly on a refound Four Two Six. The sign reckoned it was still about twenty five kilometres to Darmstadt, by my computer I’d already covered that from my coffee stop. The bad news was that it had taken me forty five minutes up to now, at the next village, some place called Zipfen, I stopped and fished my Handy from my pocket.
"Stefan?”
"Erd, where are you? Thought you’d be here by now.”
"So did I, long story, tell you later.”
"So how long’ll you be?”
"I’m guessing about forty minutes,” I offered.
"Okay, no problem, when you get here follow the signs for the Schloss, there’s a tower thing by the tram stops next to the Marktplatz, one of us will meet you there.”
"Okay, I should be there by half to.”
"Take care.”
"Tschuss.”
Well that went better than I thought it would, white tower by the tram stop on Marktplatz, sounds straightforward enough. After a quick tug on my bidon I returned to the road which climbed gently onto a rolling plain, trees having given way to an open landscape of uniformly bland fields, the early shoots just enough to colour them green. The next town, Reinheim, I remembered Jakob’s admonishment not to follow the signed route at the traffic lights which probably saved me five minutes avoiding the sleepy town centre.
Although the road rolled up and down a bit, I was keeping a decent, mile eating pace going, aided in no small part by the return to lower altitudes. I was well into time trial mode when I came to a set of lights beyond which was a sign suggesting bikes aren’t allowed. Sugar, I hadn’t been looking at the road signs on the approach but it looked like my choice was pretty limited, ie take the right or retrace. Well the latter wasn’t gonna happen, right it is, which was lucky as there was a distance board a little way further on that suggested Darmstadt was six kilometres away on this new road, the Four Four Nine.
That did sort of ring a bell from my chat with Big Jo over breakfast, six K, I should be there in like fifteen minutes. After a fairly benign couple of kilometres, past relatively recent housing developments the road started to climb and the sun was quickly cut off by a tree canopy that made it seem like I was riding through a tunnel. It wasn’t actually that steep but it was steeper than anything else on todays ride, well lets face it, riding down or should that be up, the Maintal, was never going to involve much vertical ascent was it?
Unused to the extra effort of climbing my legs were complaining by the time I reached the summit, well at least the point where up was replaced by down. It was a fast drop through the trees which were suddenly replaced by a huge tram and bus depot then more urban features. The sign claimed I was now in Darmstadt, the centrum straight ahead, the road as flat as a pancake for as far as you could see ahead.
Past a big cemetery, I followed the direction sign for the city centre but almost missed the one directing bikes off along a side street to reach the Marktplatz. It was a good call, the road terminating in a pedestrian bridge across some sort of busy dual carriageway. I think bikes are supposed to go a different way but I wasn’t the only radfahrer carrying their bike down the escalator at the end of the bridge.
Another couple of minutes and I was across the Marktplatz at the tram stops but it was only after asking a young woman at the stop that I located the Weißer Turm which is actually on the next street. I scooted around the corner and there it was, a pencil thin white tower reaching above all the more modern buildings around it.
"Hey Erd, you made it!”
It took me a moment to identify where Big Jo actually was, I’d almost ridden past him.
"Eventually,” I agreed, stopping to dismount.
"Stefan said you had a problem? Another puncture?”
"I wouldn’t call it a problem exactly,” I advised hanging my helmet off of my brake lever, "I lost track of time a bit, I thought Stefan was gonna go spare when I rang.”
"We’ve had our own issues today.”
We started walking along the street before veering towards what looked like some sort of arcade.
"Oh?”
"Well first off we had to chase all over to find someone with a key to retrieve the gear.”
"I thought that techy guy was supposed to do that?”
"He was,” Big Jo confirmed, "But he forgot and he lives some place north of Frankfurt.”
"But you got the gear?”
"Eventually but tempers were getting a bit frayed, we couldn’t get hold of Robert either, Marcus and Animal were ready to find some cutting gear to break in.”
"Geez.”
"This way,” my guide instructed, "Its just the other side of the restaurant.”
We’d emerged from the arcade into a sort of plaza, my cleats producing echoes far louder than you’d think. And there we were, Centralstation, no not for trains or buses but according to BJ, it used to be the main city electrical distribution point, you know, full of transformers and other hokey stuff. All I could think of when he said that was Frankenstein – especially when he told me that the actual Burg Frankenstein is only about ten kilometres away!
"So what’s today’s excuse?” Orange top quested.
"If you must know, it was my fan club, you want a bit of this Streusel?”
"Why what’s wrong with it?”
"Nothing, just thought you might want to share.”
“’kay, what fan club?”
"That’d be telling,” I teased.
"Huh, you heard about this morning?”
"Yeah, Big Jo told me.”
"It was getting a bit ugly I can tell you.”
"So you been to the digs, what’re they like, two beds I hope.”
"We came straight here, it was like two o’clock before we left Hanau.”
"Good job I didn’t get here as early as I thought then.”
"Yeah, so where’ve you been for six hours?”
It was a bit weird to say the least, doing the sound check and stuff in my cycling togs, well Mist had brought my Birkenstocks® in so I wasn’t in bike shoes, but even so. Clearly the issues after I departed the Max Planck this morning had created some tensions in the band, the guys were certainly not as sharp as they have been, something I wasn’t the only one to notice.
"Come on guys, you can do better than that,” Robert suggested.
There was much mumbling and a few ‘looks’ amongst the instrument players.
"What’re you singing with the intro’s Erd?”
"Er same old I guess.”
"Edelweiss?”
"Yeah, that okay?”
"Just checking, you threw us for a loop last night.”
"Sorry.”
"Okay, lets call it a day, lets find this hotel and get some food,” our leader suggested.
Our hotel wasn’t far away, I’m sure it took longer to drive than it would’ve walking although it was further away than last nights beds. The Darmstadt, yeah a lot of thought went into the name, turned out to be a fairly typical three star place, the sort of place you’d happily use as a holiday base or for business. Room two ten ticked the usual boxes, en suite, TV, separate beds and just enough room to swing the proverbial cat, not that we’d get much time in it.
I got a quick shower, well I have been riding all day, and felt a bit more like being in polite company when we gathered back in reception.
"So where’re we eating?” it gets asked by someone every day, today it was Marcus.
"There’s places by the venue, that Italian looked okay,” Hilde suggested.
"I was warned off that place by one of the techs, okay food but lousy service,” Animal told us.
"Anyone?” Stefan asked.
"We get a ten percent discount in the Mexican over the road,” Misty advised.
"Discount?” Big Jo queried.
"There was a voucher in the welcome pack,” my companion mentioned.
"So what’re we waiting for,” Little Jo grinned.
"Everyone okay with that?” Stefan checked.
I quite fancied spaghetti but I can live with enchiladas! Everyone else seemed okay with the decision so at least everyone could decide on something today.
They clearly like to keep things straightforward in this bit of Hesse, the Weißer Turm is indeed white, the hotel is The Darmstadt and the Mehican restaurant is The Enchilada. It was fairly busy but they found us a table easy enough, the guys were soon guzzling bottles of Corona, Mist and Hilde were on wine whilst I stuck to lemonade. The menu options were pretty much as you’d expect, chilli, tacos, enchiladas, tortillas, burritos, Tamales as well as some specific dishes like fried beans and ‘Aztec’ soup.
I didn’t fancy anything too spicy, well that ruled out most of the menu, in the end I settled on Menudos which according to the blurb is a pork stew. It wasn’t quite what I’d been expecting when it turned up, to be honest I wasn’t that keen on the texture of the meat, it certainly wasn’t a cut that I’m familiar with. The sauce element was okay though and it wasn’t bad, just not to my taste, I’m sure I can find some fast food later if I’m hungry, Darmstadt is like a full on city after all.
Hilde suggested we walk back to the Centralstation but after this mornings fiasco she was quickly shouted down in favour of taking the bus in – even if it stayed at the venue at least all the gear would be onboard.
"So come on then what’s this fan club business?” Mist probed as she put my hair into pretzels.
"Really?”
"Yes really, come on spill.”
"I told you I stopped for coffee.”
"Uh huh.”
"Well there was only like me and the lad serving there so we started chatting, you know, where I’d ridden from, where I was headed.”
"And?”
"If you let me finish, anyhow he asked where I was from, when I said near Bonn he was all, do you know Gaby Bond, we’re big fans, blah, blah, blah and there I am, wearing the bands and stuff. Of course, the pfennig finally dropped, they had a poster of me, would I like to see it and so on.”
"So,” she tugged at a loose strand, "Did you?”
"Well I was only being polite, so I got trailed into the workshop, signed the poster, chatted with the mechanic and left.”
"So that's why you were late?”
"Partly, I was there longer than I planned but the ride was further than I thought too, I wasn’t expecting it to be over a hundred kilometres.”
"I don’t know how you ride that far.”
"Practice, you used to ride ten K each way to Silverberg when we were at school.
"Yeah, a hundred kilometres a week is a bit different to a hundred in a day.”
I gave a little shrug, ”if you say so, we done?”
"Almost, just need to put this bone through your nose.”
"What!” I squealed.
"I said, I just have to find a home for this rose.”
I’m hearing things, was it something I ate?
Our support, tonight its the Drei Königs, finished their set, they’d had a good response and their brand of Garage rock fit well with our own slightly more hardcore variety. We’ve played several repurposed places on this tour, this one has a more theatrical scale to it, it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as that place in Bad Homberg for certain and the facilities are pretty good to go with it. I was as nervous as, well a nervous thing, the soundcheck a couple of hours ago has really rattled my confidence.
"Time Gabs,” Mist advised from over my shoulder.
"I guess,” I allowed, letting the curtain drop back into place.
"Can I just say something before you go out there?” Robert asked.
"Really?” Little Jo moaned.
"Give him his fifteen seconds,” Animal suggested.
"If you’re quick,” Stefan told him.
"Okay, I’ll keep it short, you guys have been smashing it every night on this tour, you’ve really upped your game, made real progress. I know there were some issues today, yeah the soundcheck didn’t go well either but you’re better than all this petty squabbling. Go out there and show them what you’re made of.”
Stefan sighed, "He’s right fellas, lets do this.”
I’m not a great fan of pep talks, all the ‘you can do this, try your best’ and so on but it seems that tonight at least, Roberts words did their trick. Okay, Thunder in the Mountains, our opener, was perhaps a bit wooden but by the time we reached Lorelei we were pretty much back on song. From what Robert said earlier its almost a sell out, over six hundred people are out there, come to see us BlauHase, the adrenaline was flowing on stage, we were having fun.
Maddy Bell © 28.03.2022
